Brian McLaren has totally lost it. I used to respect him as a thinker and writer even while disagreeing strongly (see any of my reviews of his books), but this election has sent him over the edge, or at least encouraged him to go public with his wildest delusions. I could have dealt with a simple word of joy that his pro-abortion hero won, but the absurd putdowns of anyone to the right of Ted Kennedy had me shaking my head.

Here's his congratulations to America:

Thanks to everyone who had the courage to vote for change over entrenchment, hope over fear, diversity over homogeneity, and reconciliation over division.

Really? The choice was that stark? I guess anyone not in favor of Obama was really stupid or racist, as a pal of McLaren's from England notes:

...exit polls show that those who supported McCain are much less concerned about health care (they can afford private), are far less affected by the economic downturn (they are more economically secure), are more racist, are gun owners (over 60%), are much more concerned about security and terror, are very supportive of the war in Iraq (over 90%) and strongly approve of Bush policy (90%)

Since 3/4 of white evangelicals voted McCain does this mean that they too are pro-guns, pro-war, racist and unconcerned with the poor? I certainly hope not. Fear of terror was the primary issue for McCain supporters. By contrast Obama supporters were concerned with access to medical care for all, ending the war in Iraq, dealing with economy (to help the poor) and addressing environmental issues (energy policy, global warming, climate change). What does this say about our faith?

Apparently it says that most Obama fans' faith doesn't affect their position on abortion, think the way to help the poor feel better is to make us all poorer with higher taxes, believe in global warming despite the recent cooling trend and so on. I didn't personally meet a single McCain supporter who claimed fear of terror as their primary issue--the only single-issue voters I talked to focused on abortion.

Later in that same post, Mr. Emergent wrote:

I do believe that this election will put a make-or-break decision before white Evangelicals in the US.

More and more people are facing a choice between "a great emergence" into new ways of being "a new kind of Christian," on the one hand ... and "a great contraction and retrenchment" into a sad, fading, feuding, fun-free fundamentalism on the other. Everything must change.

I stripped out the clever links to his books for sale on Amazon. Talk about self-promotion! Thanks to Mr. McLaren for the condescending words of mockingly false pity. It's nice to see his true colors shining through in all their leftist splendor so that more people can see exactly where he's coming from.

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